Either way, I was off ered $36 per hour to produce a dvar Torah
with the family friend’s son. Perhaps if I had known that would be my
high-water mark for remuneration in my fi eld of choice, I may have
chosen a diff erent path, but it seemed then to herald unending spoils
just over the horizon. I accepted conditionally: Th e arrangement
would be secret and I would be invited to the service (though not
to the party).

As I recall, we had three sessions, totaling about four hours. His
mother drank coff ee in the other room while we talked through
his parshah, which I had read and reread, collecting commen-
taries and pulling the best bits from to rip off (sorry, Rashi). I
would try, to the best of my abilities, to draw thoughts out of my
“client” as I typed, guiding him in this direction or that. It was slow
work. I don’t think we wrote more than a paragraph during the
fi rst session.

My confi dence took a hit that day. At Jack M. Barrack Hebrew
Academy, I was not even a particularly gift ed Tanach student.

I remember thinking, ‘What am I doing taking someone else’s
money to make pronouncements on the Torah?’ But as the second
session approached, something clicked.

I reread, for the umpteenth time, the same few verses we were
tasked with wringing meaning from. Th is future Bar Mitzvah, as
I recall, had one of the juicy parshot, one with a real story, some
drama, and even a cliffh anger (a result of the storytelling arc of the
triennial reading cycle). My own parshah was probably, pound for
pound, one of the most boring in recorded liturgical history; truly,
I defy you to come up with something relevant and exciting to say
regarding the lengths of wood required for building the Mishkan.

But reading over the verses, for the fi rst time in my life, I made
the most obvious connection for a budding writer: Why don’t I
just read this as fi ction? Not as false, but as I would read a work of
JEsimchas3-2018.qxp_Layout 1 2/27/19 2:01 PM Page 1
fi ction, attending to the text with the same sort of lens. It was so
gobsmackingly obvious as to embarrass me a little bit.

Our second session went much better than the fi rst. It turned
out that he had done a little more reading, too, and so we went into
the text together, two more or less secular Jews doing primitive
Torah study together. We wrote quite a bit more, and spent most
of our fi nal two sessions polishing what we’d written.

Unfortunately, this story does not do either of the fun things it
could have.

I didn’t start a dvar Torah ghostwriting empire, becoming the
secret weapon of frustrated soon-to-be Jewish adults all over the
Greater Philadelphia area. Nor was my mind enfl amed by the
possibility of Torah study as a signifi cant part of my life, eventually
leading to a heartwarming friendship with my Daf Yomi partner.

I was paid, I was recommended to one more family friend, for
which I was also paid, and I never did it again.

When I think back to those sessions, I try to fi gure out what I
gained, beyond a great sum of money and a funny story. Certainly,
there was value in trying to teach someone something, especially
someone just a few years younger than I and something about
which my knowledge was limited.

And that it served as writing practice is also footnote-worthy
— I did my very best to work within the accepted Bar Mitzvah
dvar template (Shabbat Shalom, “Th is week’s parsha is,” synopsis,
short discussion of themes, relation to Bar Mitzvah project, con-
clusion, thank yous) without being lashed to it. I suppose I also
learned what working parents could and couldn’t fi nd the time for.

I suppose I’ll really fi nd out what I learned when I sit down to
do this with my own family one day. ❤
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
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